During the 16th Einstein Telescope Symposium, which took place from 15 to 19 June 2026 in Aachen, Germany, the new European project ET‑COMPASS (COordination, Management, Planning And Strategic Support) was presented. The project, which had been formally approved by the European Commission on 1 May, is coordinated by INFN and has the task of supporting the Einstein Telescope Organisation (ETO), and the broader Einstein Telescope initiative, on the path towards the implementation phase.
“Einstein Telescope is the largest future research infrastructure included in the programme of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, and bringing it to realisation is a complex undertaking: ET‑COMPASS is the project that will make it possible to bring it to success,” explains Alberto Masoni, researcher at INFN and coordinator of ET‑COMPASS, “and INFN’s coordination of this European initiative confirms the Institute’s commitment to this major project for gravitational-wave research.”
ET‑COMPASS will begin in January 2027, after taking over from the ET‑Preparatory Phase project, which will conclude next December. ET‑COMPASS will have two years to achieve its objective and will be able to rely on funding of €1.5 million, obtained on the basis of a call addressed to projects included in the 2021 ESFRI Roadmap, that is, the document of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures which identifies the large scientific infrastructure projects in which it is strategic to invest at the European level. The candidate projects had to focus on the main organisational and managerial aspects necessary to complete the transition from the preparatory phase to the operational one, such as the definition of governance or personnel management.
Within this framework, nine research institutes from nine countries — INFN (Italy), Nikhef (Netherlands), KU Leuven (Belgium), Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria), IFAE (Spain), Astrocent (Poland), University of Glasgow (United Kingdom), Deutsches Zentrum für Astrophysik (Germany) and the University of Rijeka (Croatia) — will work jointly and in collaboration with the Einstein Telescope Organisation (ETO) on specific management aspects of the Einstein Telescope. The activities envisaged within the project are complementary to the processes of defining the geometry and selecting the site, and include the further development of organisational structures, methodologies and procedures for the economic evaluation of the project, the strengthening of ETO’s operational capacity, communication, and the expansion in the number of partners and their involvement.
